


you will always be danger

by IvyOnTheHolodeck



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Bureaucracy, Drabble, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 18:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21342490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IvyOnTheHolodeck/pseuds/IvyOnTheHolodeck
Summary: “Another body?” the monstrosity behind the desk groans.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 106





	you will always be danger

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Snake Eyes" by Mumford and Sons.
> 
> Content warnings in end notes.

“Another body?” the monstrosity behind the desk groans.

Crowley shoves his hands in his skirt’s pockets. “That’s what the big man says.”

The creature hisses and shuffles through the stack of parchment on its desk. “What was it this time? Big mean angel drown you again? Disembowel you?” Its mandibles glisten as it grins. “Exsanguinate you?”

“Shootout,” Crowley invents. The image of Aziraphale as a treacherous Bond girl is too good to pass up. “We’re modernizing.”

The office hasn’t changed since the last time he was in here - cramped and dim, with condensation running down the walls. Piped-in screams of the damned play on endless loop, which Crowley thinks are inauthentic, given the lack of actual humans in Hell. He keeps suggesting they replace the wailing with elevator music, one of his proudest inventions, but so far it’s all “that doesn’t fit the aesthetic, Crowley” and “we have to be gruesome, Crowley” and “you aren’t grimy enough, Crowley, don’t tell me you’ve been  _ bathing  _ again.”

The creature hmphs and stamps the paper with a wet finality. Crowley wrinkles his nose. He wishes Hell would make inkpads out of real ink. He keeps complaining that pus soaks through the documents, but Beez thinks it adds to the putrid atmosphere. “Try not to break this one so fast. Used to be I’d go centuries without having to create a new body.”

As if it does more than snap its talons to start the infernal incubation period. Crowley rolls his eyes behind his dark glasses. “‘S not like I’m trying to get discorporated.”

“Angel must have a real vicious streak, tracking you down so often.” The creature’s voice buzzes with grudging respect.

“Something like that.” Crowley snags the papers and digs around in his pockets, tossing a ball of something indescribable onto the desk. The creature snatches it up and sniffs it eagerly. “No need to go telling folk about my visit, yeah?”

It sneers at him. “Don’t blame you for not wanting news of your failures to get out. You’ve never even killed the angel back, have you?”

“Getting around to it,” Crowley mutters. He’s safe as long as the creature thinks he’s embarrassed about how often he gets discorporated. The bribes have kept it quiet so far. He can’t afford to have it get out that he hasn’t filed reports of the many, many times he’s been discorporated over the last few centuries. After all, he suspects Beezy cross-checks his memos with Upstairs, who would know Aziraphale hasn’t reported discorporating Crowley even once.

Aziraphale has no idea the effect he has, and Crowley intends to keep it that way.

He slopes off down a humid corridor toward the incubation room, his throat itching with the memory of apple blossoms. It’s been getting worse - he’d barely made it to the Bentley this time, abandoning Aziraphale and Warlock in the Dowlings’ garden, before he succumbed. Heaven only knows how he’s going to explain his vanishing act when he returns.

It was easy when they only saw each other every few decades. Crowley could duck out mid-conversation with some excuse of demonic work and find a dark corner to die in. Now, though, they live on the same estate and Aziraphale keeps  _ being Aziraphale _ \- quoting poetry and sneaking pastries out of the kitchen and overwatering the carnations and being petty toward their employer when Warlock isn’t looking - and Crowley can’t breathe.

He needs to get this under control. Too many more discorporations and the creature might start gossiping. Beez wouldn’t take well to the news that Crowley’s been suffocating on a regular basis from overwhelming love for his supposed nemesis.

There’s only one egg being processed in the incubation room. Crowley passes his hand over the pebbled surface, making fine adjustments to the body growing within. He pays special attention to the lungs, imbuing them with every herbicide that won’t kill him too. 

It has to be enough. Like hell is he going to miss the end of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: mentions of suffocation, repeated discorporation, mild body horror.
> 
> I've spent the last few months losing my mind over Good Omens and the Penumbra Podcast, and now I have Hanahaki fics for both. Should I have spent the time it took to write this studying for thermo instead? Probably, but I have no regrets.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at ivyontheholodeck - come say hi!


End file.
